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...lness; in an operation span (OSPAN) task, each letter is preceded by an equation to verify. The insertion of secondary tasks between memory items means that subjects are required to recall information that is periodically unattended (Barrouillet, Bernadin, & Camos, 2004) and vulnerable to pro-active interference (Lustig, May, & Hasher, 2001). WMC tasks are of increasing theoretical and practical interest because their scores reliably predict individual differences in many higher-order cognitive abilities, such as comprehension, learning, and fluid intelligence (Barrett, Tugade, & Engle, 2004; Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005). WMC tasks thus measure something important and general. Engle and Kane (2004) proposed that WMC task performance is influenced by many psychological processes, but its broad prediction of ability derives from domain-general executivecontrol mechanisms. According to their executive-attention theory, these general control mechanisms principally maintain or recover access to information (stimulus representations or goals) outside of conscious focus, and they are most important in contexts providing concurrent distraction and interference from prior experience. Indeed, people with higher WMC ou...

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...eading span task succeeds where previous short-term memory measures have failed. (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980, p. 463) WMC is more closely related with Gf and Reasoning than is shortterm memory (STM). (=-=Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005-=-, p. 66) Thus, the existing evidence, though scanty, is consistent with the hypotheses that WM and STM are distinct but related and that WM plays a greater role than STM in higher-order cognitive proc...

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... attention away from each successive to-be-remembered stimulus in order to perform some other task. These tasks are thought to be a realistic reflection of WM in everyday cognition because they require maintenance of information in the face of, or in the service of, concurrent processing; the very definition of WM proposed by Miller et al. (1960) and Baddeley and Hitch (1974). Consistent with this view, CWMS tasks account for a very large proportion of the variation in individuals' fluid intelligence and performance across a very wide range of complex cognitive tasks (for a meta-analysis, see Kane et al., 2005). Although other WM tasks involving the manipulation and updating of stored information have been used to explore the neural correlates of WM in prior research (e.g., N-back, tasks that requiremental reordering of stimuli, etc.), few of these alternativeWMassessments have been tested as predictors of individual differences in higher cognitive ability, and when tested, these tasks generally explain substantially less variance than do CWMS tasks (Kane et al., 2007). CWMS tasks are thus highly reliable and valid measures of WM capacity, ecologically valid, predictive of many other cognitive abili...

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...nctions but less so to IQ. Such a finding is consistent with the research described above linking stress hormones with PFC and linking PFC with executive functions. As with research on adult samples (=-=Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005-=-), however, executive function and IQ latent variables were highly correlated. The close association between the constructs is consistent with theory and research indicating that executive functions a...

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... and reliability of the tasks is also reported. In addition, the data were analyzed as a function of sex and college status. While automated complex span tasks are just one way to measure working memory capacity, the use of a standardized procedure for administration and scoring greatly facilitates comparison across studies. Keywords: working memory capacity, individual differences, validity, reliability Throughout the psychological literature, working memory capacity (WMC) is a critical construct for cognitive functioning. Numerous studies showed that WMC is strongly related to intelligence (Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005; Oberauer, Schulze, Wilhelm, & Süß, 2005) and executive functions (McCabe, Roediger, McDaniel, Balota, & Hambrick, 2010). WMC is seen as a core cognitive deficit in theories of aging, schizophrenia, ADD, Alzheimer’s disease, and reading disability (Engle & Kane, 2004; Kane, Conway, Hambrick, & Engle, 2007). Furthermore, individual differences in WMC have been implicated in social psychology phenomena such as stereotype threat, emotion regulation, and intrusive thought suppression. WMC has also been studied in applied research on multitasking, driving under distraction, and fatigue in medical ...

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...re barely linked to each other (Deary, 2000; Kline, 2000), while most have claimed that WM and fluid intelligence are closely related but not identical (Ackerman et al., 2005; Beier & Ackerman, 2005; =-=Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005-=-). Review of the literature revealed that in addition to the on-going uncertainty about the measurement of WM, measures of fluid intelligence varied. Moreover, different terms for fluid intelligence w...

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...cial behavior suggest that another highly developed human faculty – working memory – may play a vital role in social cognition. Working memory consists of multiple cognitive mechanisms that allow for the active maintenance and manipulation of information. It allows us to perform mundane tasks such as holding onto amental imageor telephonenumber, aswell as helpingus to engage in complex behavior such as reading a book or playing chess (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974; Robbins et al., 1996). Evidence also demonstrates that working memory capacity is strongly correlated with general fluid intelligence (Kane et al., 2005). The cognitive neuroscience of workingmaging; ACC, anterior cingulate prefrontal cortex; MPFC,medial rior frontal gyrus; SMA, suppleal cortex. ent of Psychology, Northwest 138, USA. Fax: 1-617-495-1492. Thornton), rights reserved.memory has already been well explored: considerable research points to the critical involvement of a network of frontoparietal regions including lateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and lateral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) (Braver et al., 1997; Chein et al., 2011; Owen et al., 2005; Smith, 2000). Additionally, a number of prefrontal regions h...

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...ough the effects on conventional metaphor quality were small andsnonsignificant in some cases. Nevertheless, considering the strong association between fluidsintelligence and working memory capacity (=-=Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005-=-), one wouldsexpect at least a modest relation between Gf and conventional metaphor. Our study bolstered theslikelihood of observing this relationship by analyzing latent variables, which removesmeasu...

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...n factor analyses (Alloway, Gathercole, & Pickering, 2006; Bayliss, Jarrold, Baddeley, Gunn, & Leigh, 2005; Bayliss, Jarrold, Gunn, & Baddeley, 2003; Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004; =-=Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005-=-). As such, any potential impairment of working memory in ASD could be due to either diminished storage capacity, diminished processing ability, or a reduction in the executive capacity required to co...